And The Prophet Said
by RhiannonNymph
Summary: Tag:Monster at the End of This Book. Castiel has questions and worries, and apparently Dean is the only one he wants to talk to about it.


**DISCLAIMER: **I'm just borrowing my favorite people that Kripke owns. Lucky duck. **SPOILERS: **'The Monster at the End of This Book' - how cool was Chuck?

**A//N: **I'm not really sure where this came from. But, uh, enjoy none the less. Also, I didn't know what to title this, so if anyone has something better that my crap title, I can take a hint.

All reviews are much appreciated.

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**AND THE PROPHET SAID**

Dean looked up from the sink and caught his own eyes in the mirror. He couldn't put his finger on it, but for some reason he felt different than he had two seconds ago. He shrugged it off and moved towards the door; he turned the light off as he twisted the knob - Sam was still sleeping out there, Dean didn't want to wake him.

He opened the door and almost collided with the body blocking his way.

He squinted into the darkness. "Dude, Cas," Dean threw his hand out, palm towards himself and waved it in a wide circle around his head and shoulders. "There's a bubble here dude, and you are seriously breeching it."

The angel blinked, but stepped back. Dean wandered out into the room.

"You hang out right up against bathroom doors often?" he half whispered. He looked at his brother, splayed out across his bed, buried in covers. A thought crossed his mind; he looked back Castiel. "Am I dreaming?"

"Yes."

"Weird." He hadn't had too many dreams lately; his nights have been all Hellfire and pain. Unless it was an angel induced dream. But why the hell had he been dreaming about the bathroom? Last time Cas came to him in a dream he just woke up where he'd been sleeping. He didn't remember falling asleep in the bathroom.

"Did you do something to me?"

"It is…" Castiel paused. "I am troubled, Dean."

He didn't like the sound of that. Dean didn't know what he could do for the angel; he could barely keep and handle on all the things he was supposed to be doing. If his angel was having issues… something bad was coming down the road; and all that he could hear were Tessa's words.

"It's not my fault is it?"

Blue eyes pushed him back a step. "Why would you think that?"

He shrugged. "A lot of stuff is my fault these days." The angel opened his mouth, probably to spout some _God doesn't blame you_ crap; he didn't seem to understand that you didn't have to be blamed for something to feel guilt over it. Especially if it was your fault. "Save it, Cas. What's the problem?"

Castiel's eyes wandered the room, and Dean swore he could see the wheels turning as the angel looked for the words. He was probably trying to find the most cryptic way to say it, to make Dean guess at it. When a sigh, an actual _I-don't-know-what-to-do _sigh, left the man's lips, Dean sat on the edge of his bed.

The only other time he'd seen Cas this distressed was when they'd had Alastair chained to a devils trap just on the other side of very flimsy door. Something really problematic was weighing on Cas, and Dean had a sinking feeling that that meant it would be weighing on him soon enough, too.

"I feel that, perhaps Uriel was…" He couldn't help it, his whole body tensed. _Cas, what? _Thought Uriel was right? He felt himself leaning away from the angel. He doubted it would save him from a smiting, if that's what was coming, but the slight increase in distance made him feel marginally better. He waited for the rest of Castiel's sentence, ready to spring away. "Unknowingly guided, in his betrayal."

The angel's head slowly turned towards Dean, it was movement that was always unsettling.

"What does that mean?" he asked. And why was he telling Dean this? He knew it must have been hard on the angel to lose his brother, and one to whom he'd seemed to have been close. And to know that he'd been working against you at the time of his death? Dean remembered Sam's death, he didn't want to think how it would have felt if Sam had betrayed him on top of it.

"I've chosen to speak with you in a dream, Dean, because I believe it is the only place I can speak my mind without being… overheard."

Dean's eyes darted around the room now. Castiel was afraid of the other angels? Afraid his bothers would hear him? What was he about to say? It was clear that Castiel was already on edge, which was weird, so Dean didn't want to freak him out anymore by looking scared. "So, only one angel can mind-jack me at time?" he asked with a grin.

He didn't expect the man to smile back. "I have… taken precautions."

Dean smiled to himself, because that sounded just slightly dirty and very wrong coming from the angel, but he didn't feel like poking fun at slightly sexual undertones Cas didn't even know he was giving off.

"Okay, so, somebody pointed Uriel in the wrong direction?"

"As you know, there are angels working against us." Dean nodded. Uriel had been one of them. "I believe at least one of my superiors to be counted among those angels."

Yeah, that was bad. No wonder Cas didn't want any other angels walking into Dean's head, he was talking mutiny. Or blasphemy. Or something.

"Who?"

"You have met Zachariah."

He grunted and sucked in a breath. He was up to his ears in angels these days, and they just got more and more bizarre.

Zachariah. Dean stifled a shiver, now there was an angel that really kind of bugged him. The others were all pretty distinctively - _other_. Definitely inhuman. Uriel was demanding and overbearing and always a little angry. Castiel was calm and patient and only slightly intolerant, he ignored the non sequiturs that Dean threw at him. And Anna, well, she was practically human. But they all had a… holy air about them.

Zachariah was harder to put a finger on. He hadn't met an angel (that hadn't been human at some point) that was that… personable. It just felt wrong. There was too much laughter, too much smiling. It made him feel like maybe Cas' boss was a little high and craving some munchies.

He sent out a silent _thanks _to who ever he needed to thank for sending him an angel who seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. Then he saw the corners of Castiel's lips turn up, just so, and he figured _that figures_. Silent thanks was pretty much prayer, and Cas had heard him before. Huh, he'd prayed twice in as many days. Maybe he was starting to have a little faith.

"Why do you think it's him?"

"There are things you must know, Dean." He paused. "I did not tell you _how_… Uriel was killing our brothers."

Dean didn't see why the _how_ was important. Only that he had been, and that he'd been stopped.

"He possessed Lucifer's sword."

Not for the first time since Dean had met Castiel and then accepted that he was, in fact, an angel; he wished he'd bothered to read a bible, or you know, buy one. Dean didn't know a lot of angel lore; he hadn't thought they were real, so why bother? "Swung by the Antiques Road Show, did he?"

It wasn't really the appropriate thing to say, and Cas shot him a look that said so. "Lucifer's sword had been locked away in Heaven, Dean. No angel has seen it since his fall. There is… no possibility, that Uriel gained it on his own."

This was weeks ago, why had Castiel sat on all this information? "So, okay..," he rubbed a hand across his face, he was getting a headache in his dream. Perfect. "Someone higher up, possibly Zac, saw Uriel as… an easy target? Starting handing out their own twisted orders and then gave him the sword?"

"Yes. Uriel was, not fond, of humans and I believe this was used against him."

Dean shook his head, he didn't get Zac but he thought it was a little implausible. "Look, Cas, I'm sorry about Uriel, I know he was your friend, but… he was an ass."

"Uriel was… determined. I believe he had questions, Dean. That that is how they manipulated him to their will, turning him from God."

"Well, you have questions Cas, should I be worried about you?"

The angel's head dipped down. "Dean," He looked back up, eyes pleading. "I need you to have faith in me."

That threw Dean for a loop. Castiel was not a creature of need. But what was more was that Dean did have faith in him. They hadn't started out on the best foot, that was for sure, but slowly Dean had come to trust him. He didn't think him quite as dick-ish as he had a first.

Castiel was trying. He was trying to help Dean, and do right by him and still tow the line that God had set for the angels. And after everything, being made to take a back seat to Uriel, after being told Dean was needed to torture Alastair… he'd managed to come through for Dean when he'd needed him. He'd told him about the Archangel attached to Chuck.

Dean had seen Cas' quick glances to the sky, like he was waiting for someone to show up and cart him off for daring to tell Dean anything.

It hit Dean. The worry, the doubts his angel was experiencing, it had to be terrifying, doubly so that he didn't know who he could talk to about it. And Dean realized how much faith and trust Castiel must have placed in Dean to come here and tell him about it. To talk to him like they could be equals. Friends even.

"I do."

"Then you should know also, that the Prophet has seen… something." Castiel leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, resting his hands on the arms of the chair.

"Something?" The angel nodded. "Like what, Cas? I need something to go on if you want me to do something about it. Was it about Zachariah?"

He sighed again, and Dean wished he'd stop doing it because it made him uneasy. "He would not… divulge his vision."

"Did you try threatening him?" he asked, "Worked for me."

"He fears Zachariah."

Dean cast a look at Sam before he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "When did he meet Zachariah?"

"Shortly before I arrived to see that he was well." Castiel's eyes found a spot on the floor and didn't leave it. "He described to me the manner in which Zachariah spoke to him. Commanded him to keep to himself the dangers you were to face."

He could feel the muscles in his chest tighten, it wasn't enough that some poor, random bastard was seeing and writing down Dean's every move; but for him to _know_ things ahead of time and be told to hold it in? Wasn't life and stopping the apocalypse hard enough already? Wouldn't it have been an aid to them to know what was next?

And Chuck, like he didn't have it hard enough already, a big-wig angel has to show up and bully him into a corner? Yep. Zac was on Dean's list of Angels to Beware.

"Why… why would he do that?"

Blue eyes swiveled up to meet him. "Dean, no man should know too much of his own future. In this Zachariah and I agree. But..," He seems lost for words again. Dean got the whole 'can't know too much thing', he did. He saw the Back to The Future that had that damned sports almanac. "But I do not think it unwise for there to be some knowledge given."

"But he wouldn't tell you?"

"No."

He wondered what Zachariah had said to the man. Chuck had written Castiel, knew who he was and what he was and hell, he probably knew at this point that Castiel was the only angel Dean trusted. And if all that knowledge couldn't convince him to tell Castiel just a little something-something, then whatever Zac said must have been really not nice. Or at least heavy with (what Dean liked to call) the '_you know I can smite you, right?'_ tone.

"I don't know what to do, Cas. What do you want me to do, how am I supposed fix that?"

Castiel's lips closed in his too familiar frown. "I don't know. I.. I just wanted to share my thoughts." He looked away and back, and damn it, he sighed again. "We must be weary, Dean. I don't know who to trust."

And the hits just keep on coming.

Dean could see the pin pricks of fear and hurt and worry and doubt dancing in the blue of Castiel's eyes. Dean's heart was hammering in his chest. Who did you trust if you couldn't trust angels? Why couldn't God just give him a freakin' break? Dean was doing what He wanted, he was trying his best. He was praying, for crying out loud.

Castiel's eyes flicked around the room, like he was sensing something Dean couldn't. Which he probably was. He knew it for what it was though, the angel was about to vanish.

Castiel stood. "Be careful, Dean."

"Hey!" he said quickly, like he was trying to catch someone before they hung up the phone. He mimicked Castiel's movements. "You, too."

Something told Dean that Castiel would be in more trouble than him if anyone found out what the angel was thinking. Cas smiled and nodded and vanished.

Dean woke up on the floor of the bathroom, and didn't that beat all. At least his pants were up.

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End. Thanks for reading….mayhaps you can leave a quick review?? Hmmm? =)


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